


Liquor, Liquor Lips

by Cards_Slash



Series: Second Verse [4]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, Episode Related, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22883854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: There was a crowd of faces, a great sea of eyes and ears, all watching to see what Bobo was going to do about this.  They were starving for retribution after he’d let Bethany live.  Henry wasn’t walking away without giving them something, even if Bobo had been inclined to let him.  (And he was inclined to let him; that was the trouble.)No, as soon as John Henry found the words he wanted to say, as soon as they came out of his arrogant mouth, he was obligating Bobo to answer the insult with more force than was required.  Bethany had begged for forgiveness, but Henry was a man that would have just stared back at his executioner like a goddamn dare.Maybe that had worked with Wyatt; maybe it had scared men who had not yet had the privilege to experience hell.  But the crowd they were working with was no better than starving animals.
Relationships: Doc Holliday/Bobo Del Rey | Robert Svane
Series: Second Verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632727
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Liquor, Liquor Lips

Really, Doc had no man to blame but himself. He had gotten all caught up in the idea that he _might_ be able to get a decent night’s sleep, free from the plague of nightmares and unwanted revenant attacks. Some assumption had been made on the part of his exhausted body that if it were to fall asleep, it may be able to remain that way long enough to ease the increasingly heavy burden of exhaustion. Doc was willing to do his part in making a bad idea a reality, but he had forgotten that just because _he’d_ accepted that he was commonly known as property did not mean that hellspawn respected ownership laws. 

Perhaps it had been a bad idea to employ such a large quantity of liquor to this troubling bout of insomnia he found himself trapped in. Perhaps if he had not been so generous with himself he might not have been _quite_ so easy to sneak up on. He might have been _awake_ before the cold edge of a knife was pressed at his throat, before a thick hand settled on his chest and two fat knees were squatting on his arms. 

Doc might have been awake enough to make some move to defend himself before the rancid breath of another revenant was washing over his face. The smell of him like a swamp-soaked corpse even before he spread his thin lips in a rotting smile. 

“Oh hell,” Doc hissed.

“This ain’t hell,” the revenant whispered to him. His thick fingers were pulling at Doc’s buttons, worming around the thermal shirt beneath to pull it down. His lips were pursed in a whistle, “why _John Henry_.” 

This was one of those things a man might call _the worst possible situation_ because here he was pinned in place by a fat man in the middle of nowhere. He had jerked at one arm and found all it managed was scraping his skin in place. Any attempt at escape would have to be more strategic. “I regret to say I do not know your name.”

The revenant didn’t seem to be forthcoming about his name. His jagged fingernails had found the slow-healing ridge of the wound the last bastard had left across his shoulder. It was digging in at the deepest bit, like he could rip it open all over again. And the _sound_ he made when his nails broke the surface of Doc’s skin was something rippling and _wet_. It rode straight through his body until it landed in his dick and he rocked his whole body along the length of Doc’s like he couldn’t _help_ it.

No sane man could just _lay_ still and let it happen. Doc thrashed, jerking his weight to one side and the other and all he managed to do was make the revenant _laugh_. That knife at his throat was biting into his skin, making promises about what happened to disobedient boys. “Bobo’s going to skin you alive,” Doc grit out through his clenched teeth.

“ _Bobo_ ain’t here.” The revenant’s hand was walking up his neck, cutting scratches into his scalp as he spread his fingers through Doc’s hair. He _pulled_ without moving the knife back and the blade cut so closely across the surface of Doc’s skin it was like getting a free shave. “And we’re just about tired of _you_ getting us killed.”

“I had a funny one liner,” was the sound of Wynonna from the side, coming through the trees with the barrel of Peacemaker already trained on the revenant’s head, “but this is just sick.” 

The revenant sneered at Doc with his last living breath. The bullet that broke through his skull was enough to throw him to the side so that when all the fires of hell opened up to swallow him whole, it was half-inches from his body. Doc threw himself back from that hellfire, toward his pathetic excuse for a fire.

A scream was rattling somewhere in his throat, just behind the rawness of his skin. Wynonna was staring at him from three feet away, caught between some sense of offering comfort and the reason that she had come here to start with. 

“So, uh,” she said.

Doc was on his feet with no memory of how he got there. He had both hands on his guns and no targets to shoot at. Every inch of his skin was _crawling_ and every shadow was full of staring faces, watching and waiting. 

“What was _that_ about?”

There was still enough liquor in the bottom of bottles around his fire to wash the taste of that revenant’s breath out of his mouth but nowhere near enough to clear his memory of the incident. Even the lingering buzz from last night’s binge wasn’t enough to make the shake in his hands settle. “I was _sleeping_ ,” he said.

“Sleeping _and_ screaming in your sleep,” she motioned at the fading steam from where the ground had swallowed the revenant, “ _and_ being mounted by very ugly men.”

“I had him where I wanted him,” Doc said.

“ _On top of you_?”

He threw the empty bottle into the fire and it broke over the last of the logs with a sudden explosion of heat. “Is there a _point_ to your visit?” He grabbed his hat and his coat to shake the snow out of it. The tent was a sagging disaster under the fresh fall of snow so he dropped back into the warm wallow he’d made. 

“We’re really not going to talk about… No? Right.” She pulled a picture out of her pocket and flattened it against her thigh, “I’m here on recon. The last of the seven is too blurry for us to make out, but seeing how you recognized Auggie…”

Looking at the picture gave him an even chance of knowing the man that had strung up Wynonna’s father. Looking at it obligated him to _answer._ It put him in the middle of a war that he wanted no part in, and gave things like the man who had pinned him to the ground _reasons_ to think they were right. If Doc were a _good_ man he would have looked at it; he would have helped her because it was the right thing to do. 

“Wynonna,” he said instead, “you wanna know why I almost got my throat slit?”

“Is _that_ what we’re calling it?”

Not if they were being honest. “Because I’ve been helping the _heir._ You. And I’m doing it for nothing.”

If he were a better man he would have stopped when her worry turned to hurt. He would have told her that he was just a jackass. He would have looked at her damn picture, let her finish the mission she’d started on. But better men were men that could _sleep_.

“So unless we are going to make this a more equal partnership, I must politely say, _go to hell_.”

Wynonna was still looking at him like a liar, like she knew exactly what she’d walked up to, but she nodded her head as she folded the picture back up. “Right,” she said to him, and herself, and nobody at all. “Well, you enjoy yourself out here.”

\--

 _Watch your back_ , Bobo had said.

Hell, he’d even said those words at the dig site he was currently standing at. He had said them a handful of yards to the right of this very same _God-damn_ fire barrel. He’d said them _to_ Henry and that must have been he couldn’t figure out why the _fuck_ the man was standing there now, why he had come back in broad daylight. Why he looked as pissy as he did, rubbing his hands together by the fire, opening his mouth to create problems that Bobo didn’t have the fucking _time_ to solve for him. 

There was a crowd of faces, a great sea of eyes and ears, all watching to see what Bobo was going to do about this. They were _starving_ for retribution after he’d let Bethany live. Henry wasn’t walking away without giving them _something_ , even if Bobo had been inclined to let him. (And he was inclined to let him; that was the trouble.)

No, as soon as John Henry found the words he wanted to say, as soon as they came out of his arrogant fucking mouth, he was _obligating_ Bobo to answer the insult with more force than was required. Bethany had begged for forgiveness, but Henry was a man that would have just stared back at his executioner like a God-damn dare. 

Maybe that had worked with Wyatt; maybe it had scared men who had not _yet_ had the privilege to experience hell. But the crowd they were working with was no better than starving animals. 

Nothing good happened if Bobo let Henry get his mouth around words, so he _didn’t_. There hadn’t been enough space between them to start with, it took less than a step to bring him close enough to wrap his hand around Henry’s throat. It took a minimal effort to tighten his grip to get his point across. “Don’t say a fucking word,” he growled into the space between them. His mouth was all but kissing Henry’s upturned jaw, and any other man might have thought that was close enough for _privacy_. There was no such thing at the center of a crowd.

Henry was leaning into the grip on his throat, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. His hand was fisting Bobo’s jacket when he could have been drawing weapons to defend himself. It wasn’t _ideal_ but it at least demonstrated a willingness to cooperate. 

There were revenants with drooling tongues and panting jaws in every direction. They were getting fat ideas in their skinny brains, thinking up ways they’d like to teach Henry a lesson about where he belonged on this food chain. To them, the world was an oyster, full of possibilities that all seemed as delicious as the other.

A fragile balance had to be _struck_ ; an example needed to be made.

Bobo could feel himself growling the way he could feel Henry’s pulse throbbing under his hand. The man was barely breathing, still just watching him, and someone had to _move_ or decisions would be made without them. He shifted his grip, dropped it to Henry’s collar and yanked him forward. 

Henry stumbled, arms out and feet slipping in slick dirt.

“If you want it that bad,” Bobo said for _effect_. 

A catcall started in the back, a long-high wolf-whistle of appreciation. Henry was _offended_ about being dragged and that was a fantastic addition to a stupid fucking show. The more he fought, the louder the whistles, the prouder the shouts of encouragement. The longer he fought the better it looked for both of them. 

They’d made this walk before, barely a matter of days ago, around the curve and to the ugly little trailer that served as his office. Only they hadn’t been followed by thick-jawed revenants licking their chops, getting off on thinking they knew what was about to happen. Bobo was still three feet from the door when he lifted his hand and jerked the door open with a bit of effort. 

“Get back to work!” he shouted over his shoulder.

Henry was digging in his heels at the last second, trying his damndest to look like he was trying to get free. He had those shiny nickel guns on his belt and no inclination to use them when he’d wrapped both his hands around Bobo’s arm like he was trying to peel him off. 

The trailer rattled in place when Bobo dragged Henry through the skinny door, and the poor secretary inside shrieked at the sight of them. She was all apologies in the next breath, “I am sorry, Mr. Del Rey--You startled me. I’m sorry.”

Henry didn’t stop trying to wiggle free just because they’d found some walls. His fingernails were digging into Bobo’s hand, drawing blood and failing to unwind them from his clothes. Bobo picked up the secretary’s coat and threw it at her. 

“Get out.”

And she ran, like all smart women, for her life. The door slapped shut behind her, and it was on him and _Henry_. 

Henry who was pink-tinged and sweating from the effort he’d put in. Who stood at the end of Bobo’s outstretched arm, still holding onto his arm. “A secretary?” he asked when he barely had breath to breathe.

Bobo pulled him forward because this was not a _joke_. “Why the fuck are you here?”

Now there was the real John Henry, caught in a trap with a gun and absolutely no common sense. There were two barrels pressed against Bobo’s ribs and no doubt at all Henry was willing to use them both. “One of your _especially_ smelly friends woke me up this morning with a knife at my throat. He seemed to believe that I was responsible for killing his kind.”

“That’s the sort of thing that happens when you start fucking Earps, _Henry_.” He let go of his clothes. “What did you do with him?”

“Wynonna shot him,” Henry said. He tucked his guns away without looking at Bobo at all. No he was making a great effort to investigate the rug under his feet.

“Of course she did,” Bobo said, “shit like that is the _problem_.”

“What exactly,” Henry said as he dragged his stare away from the carpet and let it settle on Bobo, “is my _punishment_?”

Bobo hadn’t thought that through. He hadn’t made it farther than a decent pretense of violence and a place with no windows he could _enact_ it. It didn’t matter how loudly he’d told them all to get the fuck away, the whole miserable lot of them were waiting just beyond the curve for the sound of whatever they thought was coming. If John Henry left here without the smell of blood on his skin, he wasn’t going to make it out at all. “Why don’t you choose?” he snapped.

“A man of your reputation must have reliable _preferences_.”

“You’re not a revenant, so the sky's the limit.”

Henry fixed his clothes with a few tugs and pulls. He was looking toward the door, like waiting for the sound of howling wolves. His throat was a mess of fingermarks and scraped skin. His shoulders were sagging even as angry as he was. Henry was _immortal_ but he was made of mortal parts. “I would prefer not to be fucked for the amusement of such men,” he said when he finally said anything.

“At least you’d enjoy it.” Bobo pulled the rolling office chair out from behind the desk. He’d spent more than a little money on it, made sure it was comfortable enough to nap in when he got tired of herding idiots. He’d tried it out in the store, leaning it so far back it felt more like a bed than a seat. “They can smell blood.”

Henry was just looking at him now. There was an ugly fucking world beyond that door, but right now, it was only the pair of them and four walls. “I once branded my initials into a man’s back.”

Of course he had. He must have been one hell of a sight while he was doing it too. Doc Holliday of old, bent over a bound man’s back with a knife glowing red hot, signing his initials to the crime. “That’s unpleasant to have done to you.”

“I did not get the impression that I was meant to enjoy my own punishment.”

No, he was not meant to walk out with any sort of happiness. Bobo just sighed. “Why did you come here?”

Henry didn’t say a word. He wasn’t about to go off making any admissions. No, he was going to let Bobo sign his back with a blistering hot knife because that must have felt _easier_. Whatever else the man was, he could not be called a coward. 

“No,” Bobo said before he could start pulling his clothes off. He dropped his feet off the desk he’d barely had time to properly rest them on. “The thing is, once you set a _starting point_ , you have to _escalate_. You control these idiots with the threat of worse than their friend got. There’s not a lot that I can do to you, _Henry_. There’s even less that I can do _worse_ than branding you.”

“What exactly do you propose as a starting point?”

If Bobo had warned him, he would have tensed up. He would have _prepared_. He wouldn’t have been _convincing_. Because men always thought they knew what pain was going to feel like until they were feeling it. Bobo punched him in the face, harder than he’d hit the man yet. Henry was caught wholly off-guard. He was _defenseless_ and it threw his body to the side. 

He yelped in pain with blood like a fountain spilling out of his mouth. “Son of a bitch!”

“We need a better method of communication,” Bobo said. He crouched at Henry’s side, pulled his face where he could see it, where his fingers could get caught up in that blood. “Revenants can’t get on the Earp homestead, Henry.”

“Somehow,” said the man with blood dripping out of his swelling mouth, “I do not think this is convincing enough.”

“That’s why you don’t get to do the thinking,” Bobo said. “Now, keep your mouth shut and keep moving.” 

He pushed the door open to a swarm of revenants that had a look of attempting to come up with a lie convincing enough to justify their presence. Each one of them was thinking of a separate idea, and not a single one of them had a good one. Bobo left the door open, just so they could stare through the skinny space at where Henry was getting back to his feet. 

So they could watch him fixing his hat, trying to find some dignity in a bleeding face. That’s what they wanted, to know they were _better_ than Wyatt’s very best friend in all the whole fucking world. 

“Get back to work,” Bobo growled at them.

\--

It was so infrequent that Doc had ever been able to trace back his present unpleasant circumstances to a single instant that had set him on his current course. But this time, both feet over the edge of the Earp homestead and his first breath of _safety_ in weeks, he knew _exactly_ where this clusterfuck had started. If he had known _then_ where he found himself _now_ , he would have told Bobo Del Rey to go to _hell_.

That was what happened to a man when you got so caught up in vengeance you couldn’t read the terrain around you. Doc’s focus had narrowed to a single goal and Bobo’s offer had been the most _expedient_ method of arriving at the place he wanted to go. At the time, it seemed like a minor imposition.

Here he was, still tasting blood, trying to work out how he planned on selling himself into the good graces of the Earp sisters. Trying to come up with explanations to questions he didn’t want to _think_ about. Trying to reorder the truth just enough that he didn’t have to go about admitting anything that might run the risk of getting him sent away without a place to sleep.

Wynonna would have been _easier_ to convince because she was still waiting for him to be the man she’d convinced herself he ought to be. She looked at him like there was just enough good to be worth trusting and that let her forget all those unsavory things about him. But it was not Wynonna inside the little wood house, dancing by herself to very loud music.

It was Waverly.

She didn’t even hear him letting himself in the house. She didn’t seem to notice she wasn’t alone. The music was swallowing sounds, and she was building an illusion the way she was redecorating the homestead. In this imaginary space, Waverly was any girl at all and not the sort that had folders full of information about demons from hell. 

“How many little pillows does one girl need?”

Waverly jumped like she’d been attacked; she spun around to face him with one hand reaching for the pair of scissors she had tucked in her back pocket. It was a piss poor weapon at their present distance but it was, at least, some method to protect herself. “What are you doing here? Who--did you let yourself in the house?”

“The door was open,” Doc said. By that he meant that it had been latched but unlocked. Although it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been locked; he would have invited himself in regardless. 

Waverly had more sweetness than Wynonna and half the wariness, but she had a method of looking at a man that made him feel like he was being pulled apart. She wasn’t looking at his face, but his neck and his arms and the whole of his body covered up in clothes. She was taking note of how he was leaning against the wall. “That doesn’t mean you’re invited.” 

“I was hoping to find Wynonna.” 

Doc leaned forward off the wall with the intention of stepping forward, but Waverly moved to the right of where she had been standing. That might have been just a matter of finding a place she liked better, but the deliberateness with which she moved and the slant of her shoulders as she did it meant she was _hiding_ something. 

“Oh, she’s with _Dolls_. Trying to find the last of the seven. You know she told me…”

There wasn’t much in the room that couldn’t be seen from where he had been standing. Doc eased back into the lean he had been enjoying to take note of what might have been hidden from view. When he leaned forward again, the only thing that seemed easier to see was the mantel hidden behind Waverly.

“What? What are you doing?”

“I might ask you the same thing,” Doc said.

Waverly turned in a quick jerk, grabbed whatever she didn’t want seen off the mantel and pushed it behind her back. “It’s _nothing_.”

Doc did not want to entangle himself into whatever Waverly had discovered. He was presently in search of a method of disentangling himself from the nasty set of affairs that had rendered him unsafe within the Ghost River Triangle. However, there was no quicker way to ingratiate oneself into the confidence of another than a secret. “You’ll have to forgive me if I do have some trouble believing that.”

They were both standing in a very small living room but Waverly made it seem like she was crossing a monumentally large distance as she held out the skull. 

Doc knew what it was as soon as he saw that aged yellow stain on the bones. He _knew_ exactly what he was looking at it, and all his attention was caught on keeping that fact from his face. Waverly was staring right at him, offering him a chance to prove he wasn’t such a bad guy. “ _Waverly_ ,” he said. 

“My Uncle Curtis left it to me,” she said.

The skull felt _wrong_ as soon as his hand was on it. That wrongness couldn’t be so easily qualified because it was just _bone_. It looked like, and it felt like a human skull. It smelled like dust and old age. Maybe that wrongness came from Doc as he turned it over, as his fingertip ran across the demon teeth set just behind the human ones. “You best be careful who knows you have this,” he said. He gave it back to her, as much to appear trustworthy as to be free of touching it. “I saw two very similar sets of bones at Bobo Del Rey’s dig site. And one of those sets was missing it’s head.”

Waverly had made a buffet table of snacks decorated here and there with paper things. She’d made her house as warm as she could make it. There was the faint smell of a pleasant candle burning in another room. Her face was _falling_ at just the mention of the name, because no part of her _right this moment_ wanted to be reminded of what was waiting. “Is that why you won’t help Wynonna?”

“Pardon me?”

“Wynonna she told me that she asked for your help this morning, and--” Waverly was _looking_ at him again. Removed of all the sexual interest of her sister, she was _seeing_ a great wealth of evidence to support a conclusion of her choosing. A fresh bruise on his jaw, a sizable split in his lip, a marked pinkness on his throat from a knife. His neck and shoulders were bruised with teeth marks (not that she could see them) and his ribs were still tender on one side. She didn’t need to see through his clothes to see the dustiness of them. “ _Doc_ ,” she said like she wanted to _help_.

“Well now.” Not even he was enough of a bastard to go looking for apologies he didn’t deserve. “I was in a _mood_ when your sister happened upon me this morning. I was drunk.”

“Drunk.” Waverly was better at calling a man a liar than anyone he’d ever met. “Just drunk? Not...”

“I was also suffering from a bit too much pride,” he agreed. “As I have had the chance to come to my senses I was hoping to be of some assistance…”

“Cut the shit,” Waverly snapped at him. Quick as a hummingbird, and just as sweetly, her hand darted out to pull his shirt collar down over the edge of that wound Willard and his friends had left. There was a smear of dried blood across the length of it, a mix between what he’d earned at Bobo’s and what he’d gotten from Johnny that morning. “ _What_ is happening between you and the revenants?”

“I do not know…”

“You know what?” Waverly slapped the skull back on the mantel behind her. She was all motion and anger, storming away in her tight-fitting sparkle dress. “Last week you got yourself arrested so you’d have a place to sleep! My friend Tiffany told me that a Wyatt Earp cosplayer showed up at her strip club with a _tongue_ in his hand. A few days ago a _revenant_ came to find you at a police station you were sleeping at because you got into a knife fight with a _different_ revenant in a bar bathroom. And apparently _Bobo’s_ really _angry_ at you. So you don’t want to tell me,” she pulled open the door with more force than it could stand. It knocked against her body and jostled her out of a strong stance, but that did nothing to lessen the steadfastness of her meaning. “Get out. Get out now or start telling _the truth_.”

(Wynonna would have been _much_ easier to convince.)

Doc sighed but he did not move. “As you may know,” and she definitely did, “I had a certain deal with Bobo Del Rey. While the particulars of that deal are not appropriate to share, it would not be incorrect to say that I am not well-liked among the revenant population.”

“You’re not well-liked here,” Waverly said, but she swung the door shut, “and I’m having a girl’s night. For _girls_ , which _you_ are not.” (It was very nice to know that distinction was still obvious.) “So you’re not getting an invitation from me, not to join us at this party.” (No of course not.) “ _But_ ,” she sighed, “you can sleep in the barn, or anywhere on the land if you’d rather. I don’t know if you’re here to help us or not but nobody deserves to--” Waverly stuttered over the thing she didn’t want to have to say. The thing that Doc hadn’t even found himself saying inside his own mind. 

That was a very ugly thing to have to worry about. 

“That is very kind of you,” Doc said. “Make sure you put that skull somewhere safe, Waverly. Anything Bobo wants can’t be good for anyone.”

“Fine,” she promised, “now get out before they see you.”

\--

Necessity was a bitch of a thing. 

That’s what poor dumb Robert Svane couldn’t have imagined while he was still alive. It was the one thing that had eluded him to the last moment. Robert had been made of _ideals_ because men like him were made for _ideas_. He had been a prayer and a follower. He had prayed at the altar of the Lord and he’d gotten on his knees in worship of Wyatt fucking Earp. Neither the Lord nor the _chosen one_ had done one goddamn thing to save him in the end.

Robert was an _accessory_ to his own life, a little bit of jewelry that felt nice to wear when it was useful. A pair of pearls for a nice Sunday dinner that made you feel good when you needed them and had no problems with being set back on a shelf until you felt like them again.

The only thing he’d ever done that felt like _anything_ was letting that long-long-thin-string slip out of his fingers at the side of a well. That was a choice that he’d made all on his own; the first one he’d ever made that benefited nobody at all, not even himself. It wasn’t about who it _helped_ ; it was all about who it _fucked._

What that must have felt like to stupid little Robert Svane; how powerful he must have felt at that well, listening to the pitiful cries of a trapped man. How delightful, and how _devilish_ that power had been to a man who had never been powerful in his life.

Necessity was washing blood off your hands in a piss-yellow stink, surrounded by the debris of bad living, waiting to hear what stupidity was happening in the world. It was being the center of a shitshow at _every_ moment; always looking over your shoulder and making it seem like you never were. “I assume you have something important to say.”

Peeper never had anything important to say but he always had a lot of it. He was a necessity as sure as punching Henry had been. Only Peeper would have said thank you with stars in his eyes if Bobo had ever taken a notion to hit him like that. “Only this,” he said in a hurry, “ _Jack_ has the heir.”

It was a shame about Wynonna; she didn’t have a lot of potential but she sure as hell had a lot of fire. Maybe she might have been useful if he’d ever stood a chance at convincing her that there were far worse things in this world than _him_. “And it’s not even Christmas,” he said. He twisted the water off and grabbed the ratty towel next to the sink. “Tell me about the witch.”

“I haven’t seen her, boss.” He shrank up like a raisin when Bobo got close to him, pressed up against the filthy wall by the door of the trailer. His face always looked like it had been smashed into a narrow space but never more than when he was flinching. “I think…”

“You think?” Bobo repeated, “Peeper, you _don’t_ think. You _do_. Now go and find me someone who knows where the _witch_ is.”

There were precious few moments when he was _alone_ and even less now that he had nothing but eyes following him around, waiting to see if he’d gone soft over John Henry Holliday. Even in an empty trailer, he couldn’t stop holding his breath. He traded his working-man’s clothes for a warm shirt and his usual coat. (The one Henry seemed to hate a little more every time he saw it.) 

He stole a breath, just inside the closed door, to press his forehead against the wall and gather himself. He took a moment to draw in the stink of this miserable life, to let it fill him up and wash out all those stupid ideas that he’d been having. To remind him that single moments were worthless against the fullness of eternity. 

Henry could kiss a man like he cared all he wanted; Bobo wasn’t getting out of this place any faster.

As soon as he stepped out of the trailer, he was surrounded by men with helpful faces, full of fun stories about the things they’d heard. Peeper had skipped to the sequel without telling him the main event. Maybe he hadn’t known or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to tell _him._

The witch had attacked the homestead. He had gone after Waverly and who had happened to be there but his disobedient _whore_? 

Jack had Wynonna, Henry had Waverly, and Bobo had _nothing._

“There’s…” David whispered very, very quietly from the back of the group, “there’s another thing, Bobo. There’s--looks like, well,” he shuffled to the front with a rolled up paper sack in his hand. There had never been a man that wanted to hand over something less than David wanted to give him that paper sack. 

Bobo took it out of his hand with a quick grab, set at the center of a circus of faces. He pulled out a packet of papers filled up with details about John Henry (and most of them were close enough to correct to count) and page two was a neatly shredded glossy photo of the man. 

His very best friend, Deputy Marshal Dolls had sold out his whore to BBD and now Bobo was left standing in the middle of a crowd, trying to figure out how he _wanted_ to react and how he _should_. Some things not even necessity could control.

Everything metal in a knot around him was shivering, being knocked back and forth without ever moving at all. Bobo had sent Henry to the homestead to keep him out of the reach of revenants but there was nothing sweet-faced Waverly could do to stop the sort of monsters BBD would send after him. 

“I think we’ve all had enough of _Deputy Marshal Dolls,_ don’t you?”

These men didn’t give a damn about Henry; but they were always in favor of spilling blood.

\--

Doc had been lucky (depending on your view on the matter) enough to attend _several_ underground fights over the course of his life. Now most of them had been in the time before he’d been confined to a well, but finding his way to Whiskey Jim’s illegal fighting ring had been a delightfully nostalgic discovery at the _time._ Of course, at that time, he was not in the company of a member of law enforcement, looking for Wynonna before she was dissected by a very bad man, or quite so well known by the many revenants staffing this particular establishment. 

Dolls might not have been able to pick them out of a crowd full of red-blooded, violently aroused screaming humans, but Doc was a bit of prey in their eyes and he most _definitely_ knew which ones were looking at him with too much interest. If he made certain to rub that sore spot on his jaw more than once, it was only in the vain hope that enough of them were of the variety that _feared_ Bobo.

Primarily, and _specifically_ , he was placing all his bets on the idea that Whiskey Jim was one of those revenants. This whole thing was going to go south very _fast_ if he wasn’t. Dolls didn’t seem to have any sense of danger (but of course he didn’t, why would he?). 

“Doc Holliday,” Whiskey Jim said like a professional conman, “I didn’t think you were being allowed out of the house by yourself these days.” 

Dolls must have been a man who liked an element of danger in his day, because he’d been smiling since he walked into the smell of blood and piss emanating from the cardboard mat. That smile turned just a little bit sideways as he looked at Doc out of the corner of his eyes, “we’ve just got questions,” he said. Like a man who had _really_ believed in the power of a badge, he was reaching to pull it off his belt. “I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

Whiskey Jim had never looked favorably upon the law (of any kind) in his establishment. Yet, there he was, just _smiling_ at Dolls. That was the face of a man who had just won the lottery, “I think we better have this conversation somewhere more _conducive_ to this kind of business.”

While it sounded like an offer, the men that flanked them on both sides did convey the idea that it was not _optional_. Any time a man with a mean smile offered to move you to a quieter secondary location, he you needed to start searching for a good exit and a reliable gun. Dolls did neither; he tucked his badge away like a job well done and followed after Jim. 

The office was nothing more than a dim space staffed with big-chested men with dark red eyes and a desk that was the right height to rest your legs on. Whiskey Jim was already relaxing on his throne when they came to a stop. He was just _staring_ at Dolls, rubbing his hands together like he could feel the money he was about to make. 

“Ok,” Dolls said, “we just need the entrance to your old bootlegging tunnels. That’s it.”

Whiskey Jim dragged his greedy eyes away from all those dollar signs on Dolls’ body to take note of Doc standing at his side. His tongue ran across his lips as he stared at him, but for _once_ there was nothing sexual in the motion. No, he was weighing his options so that when he started talking, he was already _winning._ “Let’s say I was willing to help, let’s say I even _could_ \--and I ain’t. And I can’t. That’s a very big favor you are asking me, and I am already owed money.”

What good was being Bobo’s whore if it didn’t cancel out his debts among unsavory associates? 

“You owe him money?” Dolls asked.

“Did I forget to mention?” 

“Look, my division can take care of whatever--”

“I know all about how that works,” Whiskey Jim said with an agitated wave of his hand. “Promises are made, deliveries never happen and I find myself being raided at the end of week by whatever federal agency you’ve got in your pocket. No, no deal.”

“I’m sure that some arrangement can be made,” Doc said.

“We’ll fight,” Dolls said because he didn’t know how to read a goddamn room. “That’s what you want? You want us to fight? Imagine how much money that’ll make. We’ll do it.”

Whiskey Jim laughed like a crow, head back and throat jumping. As suddenly as he started, he stopped. His voice was all rough, his eyes were damp with tears, shaking his head saying: “We can’t let the whore fight.”

It would simply have been asking too much to be given an evening off from his new title. There was no escaping Dolls at the _moment_ , so there was nothing to do but pinch the bridge of his nose and buy himself a moment before he had to meet the man’s eyes.

“ _Whore_ ,” Dolls repeated.

“It does not concern you,” Doc said, “look, let me handle this one. Whiskey Jim and myself? We are men who understand one another. Just…” he lifted a hand to motion at the parade-rest stance of the man aggravating everyone around him, “stop looking like law enforcement.”

“ _Whore,_ ” Dolls repeated, but more _aggressively_.

Whiskey Jim was simply delighted, still leaning back in his chair. He was a king and his castle just kept getting higher around him. But he looked at Doc with the _utmost_ interest. 

“Consider,” Doc said with one of his hands balanced on the table, “the whore _can_ fight and he can make you _twice_ the money.”

“I do like money,” Whiskey Jim said. He looked over Doc’s shoulder, at Dolls no doubt still standing there repeating the same word to himself like it might change meaning. “A _real_ fight. One of you leaves on a stretcher or neither one of you leaves.”

“Done,” Doc said. He was halfway to a stretcher anyway. Between Bobo’s various bruises and the bullet wound he’s basically given himself.

“And you,” Whiskey Jim said as his legs dropped off the desk. His body folded forward so he was leaning on his elbows, getting that space between their faces down to a confidential space, “take your shirt off. Give the boys a little looksie?”

“ _Fine_ ,” Doc said. When he stepped back from the desk, he had _hoped_ that Dolls might have moved onto something new to concentrate on. Maybe he might have happened upon the notion that they had signed themselves up for a good-old-fashion fight to the near death. 

But no, he was still standing there with one haughty eyebrow pushed up his forehead, “and why do these nice gentlemen think you’re a whore?”

“I don’t believe the definition of that particular word has changed much in the past century. As such, I do not believe that I need to explain to you the requirements of the title.” He plucked at his blood stained shirt, “or do you believe these necessities purchase themselves?”

Whiskey Jim got a kick out of that, he motioned at one of his lackeys waiting for commands. “Show them where they can warm up.”

\--

It was only a matter of time before Henry showed up at Whiskey Jim’s. Jack was a predictable sort of man, always looking for the same sort of woman and the same place to perform his living autopsies. Even if Henry was looking out for himself first, he wouldn’t have been able to keep himself running after anyone with a pretty face and the last name Earp.

“Jim,” he said. He let the word _purr_ over his tongue as he rolled off the crates he’d been leaning against. It had been just out of sight of Henry and Dolls, but he had been watching _Jimmy_ the whole time. That was the trouble with giving an inch, men like that always thought they deserved a _mile_. “I am at a loss,” the space between them was no larger than two long steps.

Jim had enough time to push his hands against the desk with some intention toward standing up before Bobo was behind him. He swallowed so thickly it made his shoulders move under Bobo’s hands. His hellish little heartbeat was just _throbbing_ in his neck. 

“ _Explain_ ,” Bobo’s fingers pushed through his cut-short hair. Jim was pushing his head back against Bobo’s palm, trying to save himself from whatever he thought was coming and missing the _point_ that he couldn’t. “Why you felt that last little bit was necessary? _Explain_ why your boys need,” and his fingernails dug into Jim’s thin scalp, split through the skin in a second. Bobo leaned forward and Jim’s body shivered with the effort of keeping them both upright. “A...what was that word? A _looksie_ ? Of _my_ whore?”

Jim’s hands were spread on the sticky desk surface, his fingertips were turning white from the effort of holding himself up. “I was selling the bit,” he gasped.

Of course he was, just not as effectively as Bobo was. He tipped his head so his breath was hot against Jim’s sweating face, and he _waited._

“I’m sorry, boss. I’ll tell him I changed my mind. I’ll tell him to keep his shirt on. Boss…”

No. Bobo let him go. David was still shrinking into a shadow in the corner, he came skittering across the floor when Bobo snapped at him. “Let them look if they want. Anyone touches,” he ripped the paper sack out of David’s hand just to make him flinch, “and I’ll come looking for you first, _Jimmy._ ” He threw the paper sack on the desk. “Make sure my whore gets that before he fights.”

Jim had never been more grateful to be breathing in all his life. The chorus of his ragged gasps was like a choir following Bobo out of the room.

\--

This game he’d been playing, running from one side to the other, had gotten him exactly _nowhere_. All the time he’d been convincing Wynonna he was a man worth keeping around, he’d been making an enemy of every red-eyed revenant in the triangle. Every time he showed up whenever he was _useful_ he’d been making his life less _safe._

Doc didn’t _need_ safety, but only a stupid man would have be willing to sacrifice it completely. Life hadn’t been safe where he was from but it had been made _safer_ through mutual friendships with the right people. Wyatt had afforded him a safety that could not be _matched_ in this miserable modern world. It wasn’t because Wynonna Earp wouldn’t have _tried_. 

No, it was because Doc was not a good man. He was exhausting himself pretending to be just good enough to count. His morals were the sort of thing that moved around like a compass, they only mattered if they were helping him get where he needed to go. He was so mixed up in nonsense he couldn’t even remember where he was facing anymore.

Dolls was biting his lips now because Wynonna was shock-white and in need of medical attention, but as soon as she was back to health, he would be telling her all the little details he thought he knew. Waverly was looking at him like it was a _foregone_ conclusion that he’d been had by any revenant that wanted a piece.

Doc could have gone back to the homestead. He could have slept in the barn. He could have kept pretending that was the life that fit him best. 

His first instinct had brought him to this fetid sinkhole of hell-spawn and half-rusted tin houses. Fresh out of the well, and looking for anything _familiar_ , he had ended up _here._ That had to say something about the sort of man he really was. And even if it didn’t, the fact that he’d brought himself back certainly did. 

Going to the dig site had been a mistake, showing up uninvited in the RV park certainly wasn’t his preferred idea, but it was starting to feel almost like the _smartest_ one he’d had in a while. Because all those revenants with fat mouths and loose tongues that had been all but shaking their dicks at him back at the dig site took a big step back when they saw him now. One after another, they were dropping their dinners and their weapons and their jaws, staring and surrendering so everyone that had eyes could see _they_ weren’t the one to touch him. 

The RV park wasn’t exactly a great mystery. Bobo was a master showman and he’d built it out so everyone that he needed afraid was camped down in the small circle. He’d set himself up a palace of his own, built a throne out of lawn chairs and filled a stable full of motorcycles that nobody seemed to ride. 

There was a hell of a bonfire burning in the late evening dark. It gathered laughing ladies and horny men like shit gathered flies. They were drinking without a care in the world, celebrating something that made sense to them. But even they stuttered back a step when Doc walked through them. They split around his path, hissing at the fire singeing their skin but doing nothing to save themselves from it. 

He walked the whole length of the fucking park, from the rusty entrance to Bobo Del Rey himself, the king of the world, slouching in a chair like he didn’t have a single fucking care in the world. Bobo looked at him but he didn’t say a damn word, he motioned at the door of the RV he was sitting by and didn’t move until Doc pulled the door open.

The stairs squeaked when he climbed them, the whole thing seemed to groan under the weight of standing in it. Doc was two steps in, dropping his hat on the long counter covered in paper wrappers and empty bottles. With the door still open, he could hear the sound of the fire and the many, _many_ struck-dumb faces no doubt watching Bobo climb the stairs after him. 

Some feelings were bigger than you were; some things were just _hurt_ too much to have names. 

Doc had worked loose half the buttons on his blood shirt before Bobo pulled the door closed. It was enough to leave a man feeling _dirty_ , the sort of cheering explosion of noise that beat against the thin walls of the RV. That was just fine, because at _least_ it was the kind of dirty that he’d made himself. The kind that soaked through his skin and clung to his bones like insulation. No amount of scrubbing was going to wash Bobo’s touch off his skin but that was _fine_.

The RV was one long hallway, split into useful sections on either side and ending in a bed. Doc had stopped between a couch and a kitchen with no real notion of where he thought he might end up. Bobo shrugged his coat off at the door, keeping what little space existed open for now. He was making those low-snarling-sounds how he did when he got caught in a trap he’d made himself. That was a damn miserable feeling for a man to have. But it was nice to know, if he had to be caught _here_ , at least he hadn’t been caught alone. 

The last of his buttons slid free on his own, and Doc rolled his shoulders to ease the shirt back. The witch’s wound _hurt_ , like the high-and-imperfect voice of a sweet-faced opera singer. Somewhere beneath that, if he listened real close, he thought he could hear her moving around. But she was just out of reach, and all he really had was one hell of a sore body. 

Bobo’s teeth were old brown bruises, _Johnny_ ’s nails were a fresh, raw peel of flesh across his shoulder. Dolls’ unforgiving fists were spots of blue-and-purple heat spread from his ribs to his gut. 

He balled up the shirt and dropped it with his hat. The undershirt beneath it was stretched by misuse, clinging by virtue of having been too small to start with. He pulled at it from the bottom, inching it over his aching skin and only made it as far as his ribs. 

Bobo’s hands didn’t _settle_ on his waist, but hover like asking for permission that he’d already been given. They skated up Doc’s body, drawing an outline without every landing, until they folded under the gathered up undershirt and took over pulling it off. 

Revenants could _smell_ blood, so there was no telling what Doc must have smelled like just then. He must have been a bouquet of unique scents with no idea if that made him more or _less_ attractive. Just guessing from how Bobo’s hands came back, how his arms wrapped around Doc’s body, how his fingers spread over the few unbruised places left, it must not have been the kind of thing that worked for Bobo.

Doc had one hand on the dirty counter to his left and the other reaching back to hook his fingers into Bobo’s belt loops and pull him forward. He hadn’t come here to be given his _space_ ; he hadn’t stripped off half his clothes to be _respected_. 

He wanted the dry heat of Bobo’s body against his back, he wanted the press of his hardening cock against his ass. He wanted to soak up that feeling, that thing that Bobo couldn’t help when he touched him. All that animal lust and _instinct_ , always gripping and pulling to get them both what they wanted.

Bobo’s breath was damp at the nape of his neck; his beard was scratching across his skin, drawing out words that weren’t getting spoken. The weight of him on Doc’s back folded them forward, but Bobo’s grip kept him from falling over. Doc sucked in a breath when Bobo’s fingers pressed into a fresh bruise; that pain felt like bleeding. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Bobo mouthed into his back. His teeth scraped that word into his flesh.

That was the idea. Doc loosened the holster wrapped around his waist while Bobo worked out if he was _offended_ or _aroused_ to find his property so covered in other people’s marks. It gave way with a lurch, hanging off Doc’s fist as he dragged it over the lip of the counter and dropped it in the shallow sink. He’d given up his hand on the counter to manage it, so it was just his elbow keeping him from falling over now. 

“I _have_ to fuck you,” Bobo said like he was _angry_ about it. 

“That was my intention.” Doc might have had something to add to that; something about a man didn’t need to spell out his every thought for the meaning to be plain enough. But Bobo spun him around so they were looking at one another. He must have _really_ liked the feel of Doc’s waist under his hands because that’s where they ended up again. 

Bobo was _annoyed_ at him again. He was _mad_ as hell, but he pulled Doc forward by the belt loops and kissed him like he was _sorry_ about it. That _hurt_ too, rubbing up against the split in his lip, adding the taste of blood to ashy hell. But that was alright, because it was the only taste that _fit._ The only one he’d come here looking for. 

The way Bobo’s body dipped so Doc could get his arms over the man’s shoulders, and the way he growled into the press of their mouths. How tight his grip got when something felt _good_. That’s what Doc had come looking for. 

Doc was half naked and Bobo was all dressed, but there was a ratty couch not even a full foot away from them that looked like luxury under the present circumstances. Bobo didn’t like being pushed, but he dropped onto the couch anyway. His arms were all muscle and _want_ , reaching out to pull at Doc’s waist again. It was Doc’s hands on his button and Bobo’s easing his jeans down. They were working together to strip him to the skin. 

The cushions under Doc’s knees were as thin as pancakes, as soft as rocks covered up with fabric scratched so thin it felt like it would rip as soon as he moved. Bobo was the only solid damn part of the furniture, slouching into the couch to give Doc all the space he wanted to sit in his lap. 

“You were supposed to stay on the homestead,” Bobo said.

If he’d had a nickel for every time someone told him all about _something_ he was _supposed_ to have done he’d be a millionaire even by these modern standards. He would be sleeping in piles of money, nesting in thousand dollar bills, getting fat on fine food and fellated by beautiful, beautiful women. “I thought you _knew_ me so well,” Doc said. He had his hand on Bobo’s cock, working it free from his worn-out jeans. “I only ever do what I _want_. Everyone knows that.”

Bobo’s answer was a growl. He pulled his coat over from where he’d thrown it, dug his hand into the pocket while Doc stroked his dick in slow, long strokes. Even his arms were full of complaints, every muscle in all his body crying for some sort of respite from the abuse. 

Respite was not _exactly_ what he was aiming to get.

Bobo slicked his cock, he pushed the lube into Doc’s hand like he had some expectation of the man putting it to use. And he might have, any other time. He might have taken his sweet time about putting on a show. He had been told from a very reliable source that he was a _delightful_ sight with his fingers up his own ass, making pleading little noises about how he wanted something _more satisfying_. 

“Henry,” Bobo gasped. He had one hand on his cock and the other squeezed around Doc’s hipbone, holding him off as he raised up on his knees and tilted his hips forward. The sound of his name was like a _prayer_ and it was _beautiful_. The first time they’d done this, he hadn’t been _meant_ to like it but he _had_ ; as much because it felt good as he wanted to make sure Bobo didn’t win. The second time, he hadn’t had the proper coordination and _time_ to _appreciate_ the moment.

This time, he had nothing but time and long strips of firelight coming in through the cracked blinds. He ducked his head so his forehead was pressed against Bobo’s, letting their breath get all caught together in a cloud. His legs were shivering with the effort of taking _slow_ , letting his body open as he sank down on Bobo’s cock. 

This time, he heard all those sounds: the catches of breath, the tight coiled whimpers, the parting of Bobo’s mouth. He could feel the unwinding _need_ in Bobo’s body, how he was trying so hard to stay so still. But Doc felt _good_ , he’d always been told he did. He felt _divine_ to a man that liked that sort of thing. His body was built just right to make you feel powerful when you got your hands on it, his skin was made for marking up. He had bones at the surface of his skin that felt good crushed in your hands.

Oh _hell_. “Next time,” he said, “I get to do the fucking.”

Bobo’s voice was as rippled as water, saying: “you don’t like my cock?”

Doc dropped his hands from pushing against the wall to fold over the back of the couch. His knuckles were knocking against the sticky wall as he started rocking. “It’s a very nice cock,” he said, “you should feel mine.”

He managed to get his eyes open, to see Bobo with his head back. To see how his throat worked when he swallowed, to watch how he couldn’t quite _close_ his mouth. To watch his arms getting tight under his shirts because his hands were urging Doc on. All that patience wasn’t going to last them much longer. 

Doc pressed his hand over Bobo’s throat, framed his jaw with the span of his fingers just to feel him breath. “Why am I doing all the work?”

The whole damn RV seemed to moan at once. Bobo pulled him down with all ten fingers digging fresh bruises into his skin and his hips lifting up to meet him halfway. They slapped together with ridiculous vulgarity, and it was fucking _perfect_. He could lose himself in a feeling like that, forget all about every other ugly thing that had happened. He didn’t need _anything_ else. 

Bobo must have liked it, but not quite enough, because he pulled Doc down as tight as he could get him and _rolled_ them both. Doc was stretched along the length of the dirty couch with Bobo back between his thighs, fucking into him with abandon. All he had to do was wrap his legs around him and hang on.

\--

One hundred and thirty fucking years ago, give or take a matter of months, Wyatt had pulled him by the shirt front through the open door of a borrowed room and right up against his body. His mouth had tasted like pure heat drenched in whiskey and his hands had felt like scouring pads across his face. Wyatt wasn’t the sort of man that wasted too much time on second-guessing his own assumptions and Robert wasn’t the sort of man to go off correcting anyone. 

Maybe he _had_ been dying to feel Wyatt pressed up against his body; maybe he had been as eager as Wyatt was demanding. He couldn’t remember now if his hands had been shaking when they eased the suspenders off his shoulders. He couldn’t remember if Wyatt and kissed him like he meant it, even the one time. 

He remembered the table under the window. How soft the knitted cloth had been under his hands, how it left imprints on his face from being held down so long. He remembered how the edge of the table was rough against his thighs, and how he could _hear_ the horses beneath the window nickering to one another. There were men in the bar beneath them, loud-and-laughing, and he remembered them too. Wyatt didn’t lean over his back, that he remembered, but he had hands like hooks. 

Robert remembered that longer than he remembered anything else.

Bobo wasn’t Robert because Robert was a goddamn fool.

That must have been why he was sitting on his ass with his back against the cabinets, resting his arm on his bent knees, watching John Henry Holliday sleeping. His army of idiots were outside the door, making twice the noise they had before, devolving their circle of success into fucking and fighting. He could smell them, spread out on the grass, spilling blood and rutting into whoever was the most willing or the least able to escape. Robert was a fool and Bobo was the king of the hellspawn.

Henry was _sleeping_ , naked to the skin, face pillowed on his hand, arm hanging off the couch, half-covered by Bobo’s coat, just _sleeping_. The smell of his blood was sharper than the stink of the revenants. It was like a perfume put on too strong; it pooled in puddles under his skin. 

That smell was keeping Bobo company while he let the cigarette in his hand burn down to the butt. It was filling up the space, overwhelming the unwashed dishes and the leftover food rotting in corners. It was stronger than the rust and mold that grew along the seams in the walls. 

And it _worked_ in Bobo’s favor because every _one_ could smell it, everywhere Henry went he was a walking confirmation of a group misconception. Whiskey Jim was full of bright ideas, stripping down his _whore_ to show off the bruises, and by now all of them must have been jerking off thinking about it. He could almost hear their loose red tongues, repeating rumors, retelling stories like facts about how Bobo had punched his whore, and he used him so _good_.

A sacrifice would have to be made. An example would have to be set; a more lasting one than he’d made of _Willard_. 

“Wake up,” he said.

Henry was all long breathes and slow starts, stretching without moving and peeling his eyes open just far enough to make sure where he was. “I am not ready just yet,” he mumbled mostly to his own hand.

Well, he didn’t have a choice. Bobo pinched the cigarette to put it out and threw it toward the door with the others he’d held onto without smoking before it. He kicked the couch to shake Henry awake enough to be annoyed. “You can’t sleep here.”

“I believe I have proven I can,” Henry said. He rolled as he said it, wrinkling up his nose in distaste at the sight of the coat laying across his body. He might not have liked the look of it but he landed on his back on the couch with no attempt to move it. “It sounds like there is still quite a lively party going on outside. It would be a shame to dismiss your _whore_ so early.”

Bobo rolled onto his knees so he could pull Henry’s stupid face back to look at him. “You can’t stay here,” didn’t sound like what he had wanted to say.

“No,” Henry agreed. “I was offered a very nice place in a barn that I have not yet had the opportunity to take advantage of.”

That wound on Henry’s shoulder was oozing new blood through the old bandage. It had already made a stain like a river down his skin. “Try not to pick anymore fights with the witch when you’re outnumbered.”

Henry’s laugh was hollow, he pulled himself up to sitting like it was the last ounce of energy he had. “When it comes to the witch, I would like to know how you imagine I could be anything but outnumbered. She is _mighty_ but I am _determined_.” 

“You’ll be dead,” Bobo said. He was still on his knees, sitting to the left of Henry, watching him trying to pick his jeans up with his toes. “ _Or_ , you could be smart for once in your life.”

When his toes failed at the job, Henry had to lean forward to get his clothes off the floor. He was hissing in annoyance when he straightened up again, looking at Bobo with a flinch of fresh pain, “am I to assume that it would be _smart_ to work with you to kill the witch?”

“We both want her dead.”

Henry snorted. “I most certainly do. _You_ want something she has been keeping from you. We cannot enter into an equal partnership when one of us has secrets he is not willing to share.”

Bobo lifted himself onto the couch, it wheezed under the additional weight, and tilted Henry sideways when he was just trying to get his legs into his jeans. “You want to know what the witch has?”

“That would be a start.”

“Why’d you make a deal with her?” 

Henry didn’t make a sound; his teeth clenched and his shoulders went tight but he didn’t even _breath_. No, he jerked away from the couch under the pretense of pulling his pants up. He dragged his guns out of the sink where he’d dropped them and wrapped the belt around his waist. He cinched it in place like he was trying to kill something, and only _then_ , when he was _armed_ did he look at Bobo. “Because I did not want to die. Not like that.”

Robert hadn’t wanted to die either, but he’d put his faith in the wrong man. 

“The witch has the means to get me _out_ ,” Bobo said. “She calls it the _lead_. It will allow me to leave the Ghost River Triangle, and the _Earps_ and the curse.”

“What if she doesn’t?” Henry left his undershirt where it had landed but he shook out his button down to pull it back on. “What happens if she doesn’t have what you want?”

“She will be _very_ sorry.”

Henry just nodded. He stopped worrying over his shirt with only half the buttons done up. He hesitated with his hand on his hat, looking sideways at the _noise_ the revenants were making. There was fear in his voice when he said, “do I look _sufficiently_ debauched?”

“If you don't look it, you smell it,” Bobo said. He grabbed his coat when he stood up. “This time, _stay_ on the Homestead.” He yanked the door open before Henry could get any ideas about doing it first. 

The revenants were cheering as he went down the steps, slobbering in excitement as he pushed his arms back into his coat. Henry followed after him without a single ounce of shame, smoothing his hair back so he could fix his hat in place. 

“Lawrence!”

Lawrence was a man that was shaped like a balloon. His head was a red little cherry set on top of his perfectly round body, all his clothes no matter how large, always seemed to stretch around him like he’d suddenly expanded. But he was _very_ loyal and _very_ strong. He didn’t move with any speed, but he always looked like he was trying. “Boss,” he gasped when he finally managed the difference.

“Take him back to the Homestead. If you see _anyone_ looking, tell me.” He slapped his hand on Lawrence’s meaty-round shoulder and _squeezed_ it so the fat of his back popped through his fingers. Lawrence was a squealer, always cringing in high notes. 

The crowd was full of faces, dumb with shock and pink with envy. Their exultant cheering had given way to side-stares and quick glances. They weren’t making noise now, it was only the sound of the fire chewing away at the trash they’d thrown into it. 

That was _best_ because there was more to fear in quiet sounds than all the shouting in the world. Bobo took a step and the scattered just beyond arm’s reach, “it has come to my attention, that _some_ of you have gotten the misconception that _I_ haven’t been _myself_.”

The man in front of him was shaking his head, fumbling around to denying that he’d ever had a thought in all his life. “No,” he gasped, “no, we were just saying--weren’t we just saying--Bobo’s been very…” He slapped his hand on his buddy’s arm, like prompting for a word.

“Bobo,” the buddy agreed.

“We all have one thing in common,” he said rather than trying to mold something worthwhile out of the lump of shit he’d just been handed. “All of us,” he spread his arms, spun in a circle, “were _fucked_ by Wyatt Earp and his very best _friend_ in the whole fucking world,” he spread his arm out to motion at Henry, still standing by the RV looking amused.

There was a chorus of agreement spread through the crowd.

Bobo slapped his hands on a man’s back as he went behind him. “But,” he tightened his fingers into the man’s shoulders, felt him start at it like he was going to pull free. “Only _one_ of us gets to fuck Wyatt back. And that someone is me,” he let his voice get louder, felt that mark on his back heating up like the gathering shadow at the edge of his vision. The man in front of him was jerking forward like a trapped animal, opening his mouth to start to scream and the sound never quite made it out of his rounded mouth. Bobo pushed him forward, on and on until he fell into the fire. His body crashed into the trash, it spread the sticks and the beer cans and the other debris in a great puff of smoke and flame. He _did_ scream then, as the fire caught on his clothes. 

Fire couldn’t kill revenants but it ate them like bacon grease. It clung to them while they screamed, like this man did, struggling back to his feet in some vain attempt to free himself. 

“The next one of you,” Bobo shouted at them as he walked the last curve of the circle, “that I _find_ even _looking_ at what’s mine will get the Levi treatment, courtesy of my whore.”

Henry was looking at him, and only at him, like there wasn’t a screaming man on fire running the length of the RV park looking for any pot of water that might put him out.

“Shut him up, will you?” he said so loudly that not a single set of ears in the crowd could pretend they hadn’t heard it.

Henry was _smiling_ , like he’d never been asked anything so pleasant before in his life. He pulled his gun out of the holster in one quick move and aimed it over Bobo’s shoulder without waiting for him to move. It took the length of a single heartbeat to go from the gun in the holster to the shot ringing out.

The screaming came to an _end_ with a meaty thump.

Henry just tucked the gun away while a shiver went through the whole crowd. They’d gotten caught up in a funny idea, thinking that just because Bobo was making use of the man that he had stopped being who he was. Wyatt was a good man with a sheriffs badge but Doc Holliday had always been a demon in his own right. 

Bobo motioned him toward Lawrence. The fat man was even less happy to have been sent on the mission than he had before, but fear was good for that sort of thing. Henry followed after his constant waddle with an unnecessary cockiness to his walk.

Bobo plucked a mostly-full beer out of the hand of a shocked-still revenant and dropped back into the chair he’d started in. He rolled his fingers in the air, and said, “ _continue_ ,” just to watch the whole dumb lot of them trying to work out what he wanted them to do.


End file.
